Category: Articles

Recent developments in prevention are pointing to worrying gaps in the community-based approach to HIV prevention in Canada.

Perhaps we have been used to having only a single prevention technology on our books for so long – think condoms – that our ducks are not always in a row when new ones like PrEP come along. Thus potholes in our response become apparent – and none leap in to fix them.

After a series of somewhat inconclusive PrEP trials, whose results were marred by adherence issues, the results of more stringent trials like the PROUD and IPERGAY studies are in, and they are good. So good, in fact, that it would now be foolish not to put PrEP right at the front of the shelf that features ways to stay HIV-negative.

What happens when much of your life is built around a particular position or identity, and then that identity changes?

In 1993, while in the hospital having my daughter, I was diagnosed with hepatitis C. Three years ago, I did the ribavirin and pegylated interferon treatment and cleared the virus. It’s very cool to be living virus-free after 25+ years of being positive, but it is also kind of weird.

A while back, CATIE wanted to find out what’s been done across the country to assess the frontline needs of HIV and hepatitis C service providers and service users. As the information specialist (or librarian) here at CATIE, I was duly tasked with locating whatever reports I could find.

While at AIDS 2014, CATIE’s Ed Jackson and I met with a number of Australian agencies to pursue a plan to share best practices around gay men’s sexual health programming. I was already familiar with some of Australia’s powerful awareness, prevention and testing campaigns, but a closer look at the Aussie HIV response has been eye-opening and provides many useful learnings for Canada.